An Algarve club lets golfers order lunch by WhatsApp and have it flown to them, a UK operator calls in a neuroscientist to review its customer experience and a Borders club shows how a cheap on-course toilet can make a course more welcoming. Here are three stories concerning the golf industry we learnt about recently.
An inexpensive way to make remote parts of the course more welcoming
Eyemouth Golf Club in Scotland has been granted planning permission for a waterless composting toilet near its 13th hole.
The system doesn’t use mains water or a standard sewer connection, and units like this can be installed relatively quickly and cheaply, even in remote corners of a course.
On-course toilets are increasingly seen as a way to be more inclusive, particularly for women. If your facilities stop at the clubhouse, this could be an inexpensive fix. Just check the planning requirements first.
Fresh eyes on the customer experience
Maple Leaf Golf has brought in neuroscientist Stephen Smith to review the customer experience at its venue, Horton Park in Surrey. In recent years the club has been transformed from something that was “careworn and unloved” into an exciting destination that attracts local people who would not normally visit a golf club, and Smith’s appointment is seen as the next step in that journey.
Smith believes a golf club’s design should light up the pleasure centres of the brain, driven by the neurotransmitter dopamine, which our surroundings can switch on and off.
You don’t even need a neuroscientist to try this. Ask someone who has never visited your club to walk in, and note what they say. It could be a useful alternative to secret shoppers, giving you a view of what new customers really experience.
Order a sandwich on the 12th and have it delivered by drone
Salgados Golf Club in Portugal’s Algarve has launched what it says is Europe’s first on-course drone delivery service. Golfers message the club on WhatsApp, an AI concierge takes the order and sends it to the club’s existing point-of-sale system, then staff pack it and a drone flies it to the players.
You don’t even need a drone to take something from this. The idea is to remove the gap between a hungry golfer and a till, so the halfway house and the buggy bar aren’t the only places to buy.
Golf clubs today can offer golfers more than ever, and a sandwich delivered to them by a flying machine on the 12th is just the start.
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